Article
Saving the children
How to create effective messaging to stop violence against children
In an experiment where people were asked to place numbers along a linear axis, many respondents placed a million, roughly halfway between a thousand and a billion (it really doesn’t go there). While we might be good with the numbers we are familiar with, once the zeroes start going up we begin to get confused. Which is why this site, that visualizes the wealth of Jeff Bezos is so popular.
This, maybe tied in with some version of the just-world hypothesis, might be the reason it’s hard to believe that more than a billion children between the ages of 2 and 17 globally are victims of Violence Against Children (VAC) every year (WHO). This may range from extreme physical punishment to chronic and menacing psychological pressure (United Nations Children’s Fund, 2010). All are injurious and have far reaching consequences.
We already know that COVID-19 restrictions brought about an increase in gender based violence — but what about violence against children? We worked with Raising Voices, a charity focused on preventing violence against women and children, to explore the effectiveness of different messages that could be included in campaigns on the prevention of violence against children
“What kind of footprint are you leaving in children’s lives? Because a violence free childhood is everyone’s right”
Given the restrictions around COVID-19, we used virtual labs to run experiments and collect data online in a timely manner. These labs run experiments in two ways:
- Through Zoom for difficult protocols, interactive games
- Sending closed links for users to participate on their browsers.
Running a virtual lab helped us reach a larger sample in a short period of time using fewer resources. Below are the basic requirements needed to set up a virtual lab:
i) A server– For storing and sending data to devices logged into the experiment files.
ii) Web based browser — participants need access to a web based browser to open the experiment link. Participants can play the games either on their mobile devices or their personal computers.
iii) Internet connection — since the games or experiments will be played online using a web based browser, participants need stable internet connection to open the experiment links.
Creating effective messaging
The UN Women’s virtual knowledge center to end violence against women and girls defines an effective message as one that captures the attention of the focus audience, is easy to understand and remember, and does not require further explanation. So, simplicity is key — but what else? The Behavioral Insights Team set their interventions on principles that include “make it easy” and “make it attractive” They go further to add that an attractive message should be aesthetically pleasing, achieved through a variety of framing techniques or the use of images and colour. Finally, the message must be perceived as personally relevant to the recipient thus influencing their thoughts and behaviour. This is often done by using personalized messages targeted to different subgroups or individuals.
When creating messages for a wider audience, tailoring becomes more complicated. What will be the thing that ties them together? What sentiment can they rally around? Keeping human psychology in mind, we tested messages that focused on aspirations people have for children (education), ownership of the impact they are having on a child’s life (footprint) and a sense of responsibility (action). Respective messages were:
- Education: “A Good School = A++ Better Life”
2. Footprint: “What kind of footprint are you leaving in children’s lives?”
3. Action: “What are you doing to prevent violence against children?”
Then what?
589 participants took part in the study (322 female and 267 male). Participants were randomly selected from our Kibera subject pool and assigned to one of 6 treatments groups. The treatment group sizes by gender are shown in the table below.
Participants were sent experiment links , each being exposed to messages according to their assigned treatment groups. To ensure the link between the message and VAC prevention was clear we added a consistent tagline to all messages, “…because a violence-free childhood is everyone’s right.”
To evaluate effectiveness of the message, we looked at the following questions:
- Do individuals hypothetically prefer the government to prioritize efforts to prevent violence against children even if it means spending less money on other priorities such as health and roads?
- Do people apportion a larger part of the resources they are given in a dictator game to a VAC prevention charity?
Virtual labs allowed us to run a dictator game remotely. This is an economic game that is designed to question the standard economic assumption that individuals will act solely out of self-interest. In it, participants are allocated KES 100 and given the option to make any donation from that amount to charity or to keep the money. The protocols for this game were translated with instructions, pre-recorded and audio clips loaded after consent to simulate whoever reads it out in physical lab sessions. Participants were given the choice to either read the instructions or to listen to the pre-recorded audio while running the experiment. The hypothesis in this instance was that effective messages would stir altruistic behavior leading to greater support of the VAC prevention charities.
3. How well do participants recall the message at the end of the experiment and after 24 hours?
No express criteria other than an equivalence of schooling (Standard 7 and above) and participants being 18 years and above was used to determine eligibility to participate, however the need to read, write or own a smartphone likely contributed to who opted into the study.
What did we find?
- We looked at between-group differences in support towards government prioritizations of preventing violence against children and found high levels of support across all groups. There is statistically significant greater level of support in the Action group compared to the Education group
Looking at the figure below, individuals across the treatment groups support the government taking initiative to prevent violence against children regardless of the message. The participants were informed and aware that the increased budgetary allocations to violence against children campaigns would come at the expense of other priority areas such as health and road maintenance. Apart from the group that received the Education message with no tagline (Treatment 1), at least 80% of the participants in the other groups support increased government expenditure on campaigns.
There is a higher level of support towards government spending on VAC prevention campaigns in Treatment 5 (Action message). This is 89% compared to 74% in Treatment 1. The Education message is not very specific to the cause. Weak associations formed between schooling and its contribution towards reducing violence, could lead to government support for VAC prevention campaigns not increasing as much as the other treatments. This difference gives an indication that any alterations to the messaging would be more potent if there is a stronger link to the cause.
2. There are between-group differences in donations towards VAC prevention charities. The Footprints group donates significantly more than the Education group.
In a dictator game, individuals were given 100KSH and the option to donate any amount to VAC prevention charities. They were in no way compelled to make the donation as they could also take the entire amount home. Across all the treatment groups, there was no group where the majority of the participants donated more than half their money to charity.
From the figure below we see on average individuals donating 48% of their money when they are directed to think of the footprints they are leaving in their children’s lives (Treatment 3), compared to other treatment groups which donate less. Individuals in this Footprint treatment donate more compared to other treatment groups i.e. Education — 41%, Education with tagline 39%, Footprint with Tagline 40%, Action 43% and Action with tagline 42% . Asking people what footprints they have thus far left in their children’s appears to increase altruism. This could be due to the realization that they have previously not done much in leaving footprints in their children’s lives hence they are presented with an opportunity to act.
When the tagline is added, the donation in this Footprint message reduces to 40% as indicated below. The extension of the message through adding a tagline may divert the need for personal application of the message. This lines up to the literature that encourages keeping messages simple and leaving out parts of the message that are not absolutely necessary for an intended action to be carried out. For effectiveness of the message, any additions and alterations should not negate any introspection that has arisen from the key part of the message.
In further analysis, we factored in the number of children one has to see whether this has any bearing on donations made. There is no significant association between the number of children one has and the amount donated. We carried out a similar analysis across the genders. We find no significant differences in donation between males and females. On average women donated 43% of their allocation, while men donated 41%. A means t-test reveals that the difference is not significant (p-value of 0.3984),
3. There are between-group differences in message recall both at the end of the experiment and after 24 hours. There is better recall precision of the Action message.
Whether at the end of the experiment or after 24 hours, individuals recall the Action message with no tagline (Treatment 5 “What are you doing to prevent violence against children?”) more precisely than other treatment groups. 49% recall the actual message at the end of the experiment and 45% after 24 hours. Individuals have better recall of this message compared to both Footprint messages (Treatment 3 “What kind of footprint are you leaving in children’s lives?” and Treatment 4 “What kind of footprint are you leaving in children’s lives? Because a violence free childhood is everyone’s right”). It is important to note that we had a 54% response rate of the recall question after 24 hours compared to 98% at the end of the experiment.
Similarly, there is better recollection of the Education message with the tagline (Treatment 2 “A good school equals a better life because a violence free childhood is everyone’s right”). There is 38% exact recollection both at the end of the experiment and after 24 hours, compared to the Footprint messages where 28% recall the message at the end of the experiment and 22% after 24 hours. Apart from the education message, adding the tagline reduces recollection across the treatment groups, which is anticipated as there is more to remember.
A billion children may be a large number, but this study shows that creating simple effective messaging can go a long way in changing the perceptions around VAC and maybe bring that number down to a number we understand even less about — zero.
